“Dead. A few years after you left. It’s how Baron took everything over.” Marquis smiled to reassure Mads before closing the car door and walking around to the driver’s seat.
“I don’t remember going to his funeral…” Mads frowned, and his brow creased, little lines forming between his brows.
“You weren’t there. I showed up, praying I’d see you. I brought Rexford… Baron wasn’t stupid enough to bring you. People knew he’d taken you from me, but they thought it was simply a matter of his woo and my lack of resources.” Marquis buckled himself in and started the car.
“It wasn’t because of that. You were always the better choice. Before our wedding, Baron asked me to come with him and Damien. I turned him down, which is why I insisted on our marriage doing a mating rite. I didn’t want him to take me. Ithought that would stop him. I never said anything because it’s my word versus his, and I’m just a pennywitch.”
“You haven’t been a pennywitch for eighty years. You are a Penumbra mage. You’re no longer an Eclipse. You never were an Eclipse. I take you in as my coven member. Understand?” Marquis tensed his fingers on the steering wheel before putting it in drive and heading to his favorite little restaurant. A good lunch would be the start to their excursion. Good food to get rid of the bad emotions.
“You really don’t think I’m guilty?” His voice went small.
“Of what? You were cleared the moment you were in custody. You have stood no trial. They’ve questioned you, surely.” Marquis took a few side streets.
“I don’t know what to think. After a few years, things slipped often enough that I thought I could get away, but I kept thinking that you wouldn’t want me back. That I had seen and been involved in too much.” Mads closed his eyes and settled.
“I told myself I didn’t want you back. I told myself so many times to forget you, that you had chosen Baron. And when I finally saw you with a clear head—every ill feeling I had went away. Our mating bond is strong. Almost as if you were born a familiar.” Marquis flipped his turn signal and went down another street.
As Marquis pulled into the parking lot and stopped the car, Mads spoke. “Most omegas are familiars. Few are given the right circumstances to shift. It takes unfathomable happiness to trigger it. It’s why poorer families never really made familiars. In the past fifty years, he’s run some experiments. Some families with omega children were happy to give him a shot.”
“Like?” This was news to Marquis.
“There was a kid was blinded by a strobe spell as a babe. An omega boy with a really unfortunate birthmark… I know he spent a year in Australia hunting down some half-breedkid. A Korean mundane who had left her lover. Cute boy, Cade Greymorning was his name. Though, when I was telling everyone, they couldn’t find his record.” Mads frowned.
Warring. Leon. And based off of his dark hair, slight stature, and shape of his eyes… Nite. And proof that Mads had been befuddled and lost chunks of time. Nite’s name had been lost to the fairies, and if Mads’s mind had been absent at the time of the deal… “I believe you are innocent. I believe you were addled and kept mentally unfit. Every word of it with what you just said.”
“How’s that?” Mads turned his head as Marquis dialed a number.
“I’ll prove it.” The phone rang twice before the new stereo system in his car picked up Rexord’s polite greeting.
“Covenmaster.”
“Father. Must I tell you again? I have something for your mate. Is Midnite around?” Marquis drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as Midnite’s drawl piped up.
“Heya, Marquis. Sup? I’m on speakerphone. Dirty diaper duty. It’s not another fried onion, is it?” Nite rustled in the background with a little one that kept giggling and crying out with something less than pleasure but not quite joy.
“No, I’m saving that for your anniversary. Mads remembers your true name.” Silence met Marquis’s statement. Neither Rexford nor Nite had a word to say for a few seconds.
“If I were to know my true name again, would it cause harm?” Nite’s voice went quiet.
“True name?” Mads mouthed, and Marquis gave him a patient look, as if to tell him he’d explain in a moment.
“No. It means that he wasn’t in his right mind when you sold your name. And because he remembers, whatever magic was used would be fairy origin, right?” Gods and goddesses bless Rexford and his astuteness. If anything, he could thank Doris for, it was her determination to see Rexford educated.
“Correct. But his name won’t hold record or power.” Marquis smirked as Midnite sighed heavily.
“Out with it, you old dragon!”
“Perhaps I don’t feel like giving it to you since you’re taking that tone with me.” Marquis huffed.
“Father.” Rexford had a tone so reminiscent of Marquis’s father when he was irritated. Marquis wanted to deny him on that alone.
“Wait, wait? Will I need to go by my name again or, like, do I still call myself Nite or what?” Midnite’s panicked voice peaked in the background.
“Midnite is your name. You adopted it and go by Nite. That will not change. But it will be your name. Maybe hearing it will remind your family.” Marquis cleared his throat.
“They’re better off forgetting me. The Grey Mornings are my family. The Red Skys are my family. Penumbra is my sponsor coven. They are my home and family. My mundane side is nuttier than a fruitcake, and I hang with Tack and Sailor.” Nite huffed.
“In that case. Your name was Cade Greymorning. I know you said your last name was changed to another at some point, but for magekind’s purposes, that was your last name.” Marquis gave Mads a soft smile as Nite muttered the name,Cade.
